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Horn, Reinhart and Trebesch have a new paper out arguing that China has lent the world over $5 trillion --
"As of 2017, the world owed more than five trillion USD to the government of China, or around six percent of global economic output. "
No disagreement from me ...
"As of 2017, the world owed more than five trillion USD to the government of China, or around six percent of global economic output. "
No disagreement from me ...
They scaled the Chinese data to world GDP and have a detailed disaggregation of where China has lent the money. But there is no doubt that their basic trajectory showing China's emergence was a large global creditor over last 20ys is right
ifw-kiel.de/publications/m…
ifw-kiel.de/publications/m…
Only caveat I would add is that China is increasingly acting as a global intermediary, its state-institutions borrowing from the world in order to lend to the world. Total bank lending in the BoP is ~ $2 trillion, but ~$1 trillion of that is borrowed money
Still, the Chinese state is clearly a major global creditor, with $3 trillion or so at SAFE, $100-200b of foreign bonds in the state banks, and $2 trillion in loans/ trade credit to the world from the state banks v ~ $1 trillion in liabilities
